Xenoblade X is a very messy game. There's a lot of mechanics at play here, a lot of story elements, and weird ideas. While there are a lot of times where it feels disjointed, it oddly works much more often than it doesn't.
Combat is a real highlight here. It feels like familiar xenoblade action, except with the ability to swap between melee and ranged attacks. A major new change is TP, which is built up by using certain attacks that can be spent on other arts. More importantly, TP is used to activate overdrive. Overdrive is an enhanced mode where arts come back very quickly, and can be perpetually maintained by earning more and more TP. Keeping it going as long as you can is some of the most fun I've had with any combat system ever. Unfortunately, some of that goes out the window when skells are introduced. As fun as it is punching stuff with a giant robot, combat just feels less mechanically complex. Overdrive is no longer a hectic rush to keep it going, but is just luck-based instead. It's a shame that the strongest option isn't the most fun.
Exploration is standard xenoblade fare for the most part, but the open-world setup is quite fun, especially when skells get introduced. The limited ground movement is replaced by jumping all over the place at mach 10, and it feels great.
Quests are a bit messy. Sidequests are comparable to other xenoblade games, but it can be rough trying to find the right enemy to kill or item to find after Xenoblade 1's Definitive edition perfected this style of quest system. Story quests are straightforward and have a lot of great moments. Affinity quests are okay to pretty good, really just depends on if I like the characters in them or not.
The FrontierNav system is very unusual. It's all about strategically placing different types of probes to gather materials. It's alright, but feels a bit complicated for not a lot of fun extra moments. It often is more of a limiter on stuff that doesn't seem like it should be limited.
The music and presentation is good. The area themes are great, and a lot of the vocal themes are also great, but for different reasons. Area design is sharp and cool looking. Only real downside is that the character designs are somewhat dull.
The story is one of the more unfinished feeling elements. There's a great premise, a lot of excellent moments, some good sections of character writing, cool reveals. But this is on top of a disjointed structure and a core cast that feels flat for the vast majority of the game. For example, Lin was quite boring for most of the game until she randomly got a bunch of great moments in the last few chapters. The villains don't feel like a huge threat and reveals tied to them feel underwhelming. This would be fine if the core cast had more going on.
Alright that's enough essay writing. Game's good.
Combat is a real highlight here. It feels like familiar xenoblade action, except with the ability to swap between melee and ranged attacks. A major new change is TP, which is built up by using certain attacks that can be spent on other arts. More importantly, TP is used to activate overdrive. Overdrive is an enhanced mode where arts come back very quickly, and can be perpetually maintained by earning more and more TP. Keeping it going as long as you can is some of the most fun I've had with any combat system ever. Unfortunately, some of that goes out the window when skells are introduced. As fun as it is punching stuff with a giant robot, combat just feels less mechanically complex. Overdrive is no longer a hectic rush to keep it going, but is just luck-based instead. It's a shame that the strongest option isn't the most fun.
Exploration is standard xenoblade fare for the most part, but the open-world setup is quite fun, especially when skells get introduced. The limited ground movement is replaced by jumping all over the place at mach 10, and it feels great.
Quests are a bit messy. Sidequests are comparable to other xenoblade games, but it can be rough trying to find the right enemy to kill or item to find after Xenoblade 1's Definitive edition perfected this style of quest system. Story quests are straightforward and have a lot of great moments. Affinity quests are okay to pretty good, really just depends on if I like the characters in them or not.
The FrontierNav system is very unusual. It's all about strategically placing different types of probes to gather materials. It's alright, but feels a bit complicated for not a lot of fun extra moments. It often is more of a limiter on stuff that doesn't seem like it should be limited.
The music and presentation is good. The area themes are great, and a lot of the vocal themes are also great, but for different reasons. Area design is sharp and cool looking. Only real downside is that the character designs are somewhat dull.
The story is one of the more unfinished feeling elements. There's a great premise, a lot of excellent moments, some good sections of character writing, cool reveals. But this is on top of a disjointed structure and a core cast that feels flat for the vast majority of the game. For example, Lin was quite boring for most of the game until she randomly got a bunch of great moments in the last few chapters. The villains don't feel like a huge threat and reveals tied to them feel underwhelming. This would be fine if the core cast had more going on.
Alright that's enough essay writing. Game's good.